French Revolution Essay

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Benjamin Washechek
History 102
Professor Rashmi Chilka
3 March 2014
Did the French Revolution Follow its Beginning Principals?
The ideals of the French Revolution were liberty, fraternity and equality. These lofty ideals inspired people to cast aside their own personal safety and join in the formation of a wave that would sweep away the established government of France. There were, however great differences between the ideals behind the French Revolution and the results of the Revolution.
Looking at the first principal of liberty, we do see that in the beginning, the French revolution was driven by the people’s desire for individual liberties. These liberties included: owning their own land, making enough money to afford bread, and not having to bear the brunt of the taxes while the nobles and others in power paid almost nothing. In this respect the revolution did provide hope for liberty to the Third Estate.
The ideal of equality was a huge driving force of the revolution. The people wanted equal treatment under the law for every French citizen. This meant that they wanted the high church officials to have a lower living standard. They also demanded that the nobles pay taxes from which the nobles had been practically exempt in the past. To this end, they attacked both the nobility and the church in their quest for equality. Though this attitude spawned iconoclast actions and mob violence against the nobility, the people had still managed to turn the tide of events towards lasting equality for all French citizens.
The third and final call from the revolution was fraternity. This meant to them, brotherhood among all French citizens. The people wanted everyone to be able to look at one another as equals and for all to work equally ...

... middle of paper ...

... spilled more blood to secure its power.
The French people wanted liberty and took steps to secure it. They trusted the assembly to work in their best interest. The assembly could have acted in good faith with the people of France and implemented individual liberties. Instead, many of the factions who were blinded by greed and ambition, fought to secure power for themselves. True greatness rises from selfless decisions like that of George Washington when he choose to relinquish his power to congress. I believe that if those in the assembly had all put aside their own desires, the founding ideologies of the French Revolution would have become a realities and the world would be a very different place today. But in the end, all the lofty ideals of the French Revolution were first trampled in the stampede for power, then washed away by a flood of unnecessary bloodshed.

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